University of California, San Diego - Admissions and Enrollment

Admissions and Enrollment

UCSD received 60,839 freshmen applications for Fall 2012, and admitted 22,940, or 37.7%. Admitted students attained an average high school GPA of 4.07, an average ACT Composite score of 29, and an average combined SAT score of 1901 (average SAT scores of 639 for Critical Reading, 691 for Mathematics, and 661 for Writing). 31% of admitted students receive federal Pell Grants. According to the 2010 U.S. News & World Report, students applying to UCSD are also most likely to apply to UC Berkeley, Stanford University, and Harvard University for matriculation.

The four year, full-time undergraduate program comprises the majority of enrollments at the university. The university offers 125 bachelors degree programs organized into six disciplinary divisions: Arts, Humanities, Engineering, Science/Math, Biological Sciences, and Social Sciences. 38% of undergraduates major in the social sciences, followed by 25% in biological sciences, 18% in engineering, 8% in sciences and math, 4% in humanities, and 3% in the arts. Each undergraduate college sets its own general education requirements (GEs) for graduation in addition to the specific requirements of majors set by individual departments and programs.

Graduate admissions are largely centralized through the Office of Graduate Studies. However, the Rady School of Management, Scripps Institution of Oceanography, and the Graduate School of International Relations and Pacific Studies (IR/PS) handle their own admissions.

In 2009, UCSD mistakenly sent Admit Day welcome emails to all its 47,000 freshmen applicants, instead of just the 17,000 who had been admitted. However, school officials quickly realized the mistake and sent an apology email within two hours.